Friday, May 01, 2015

This is what I think about the sex work/ sex trafficking controversy, followed by a lot of links for further background and education. (Updated June 2014)

I’m a sex worker, I like being a sex worker, and I am an
activist for the rights of sex workers. As part of that, I would like to see a
world where no one is forced to do sex work. That does happen sometimes, and
it's bad. But forced sex work is not the huge and scary problem some people
would like you think it is. It is not okay that it happens at all, but it
simply does not happen NEARLY as often as anti-sex workers say it does.

To begin with, understand this fact: When lawmakers and
anti-sex work activists say “sex trafficking” they mean ANY exchange of sex for
money, even if it is between two adults and completely voluntary. Let me say
that again, because I think it bears repeating. To an anti-trafficking
activist, an adult person, fully in possession of her rational faculties and
completely independent of anyone else’s influence, who chooses to exchange a
sexual act for money = a sex trafficking victim.

I think this is deeply insulting to people who really are
victimized. I think one should only use the work trafficked to mean a person
who is truly being forced or coerced, or controlled by another person in a way
that's harmful or exploitative. I also think it's unjust to invalidate the
agency of an adult person. You own your body, and if you, as a consenting
adult, choose to have sex with another consenting adult, the state should not
have the right to say, "No, we don't approve of your reason for having
sex, so we are declaring your act to be a crime and arresting you both."
It does not matter if you decided to have sex because someone bought you
dinner, or because they offered you a diamond ring, or if they offered you a
hundred dollars.

Further, no one should declare that you are a
"victim" of anything without your consent. It is for the person who
has had the experience to identify whether she/he was a victim of something or
not. It’s wrong to impose a label on someone they did not choose for
themselves.

Since about 2008, the rhetoric about any act of sex for
money has changed, and it is now all defined as "trafficking". That's
happened for a variety of reasons, most of them to with the allocation of grant
money and the erosion of civil liberties. So the War On Sex Workers* is much
like the War On Drugs. There is a system of restrictive ideas about what kind
of behavior is socially acceptable, which have been woven into government
policy and law, and there are a lot of people whose jobs and money and sense of
power are all dependent on keeping that system in place. If there is no social
panic about shadowy international crime rings and millions of women and
children being abused in sensational ways, those people will lose power.

Plus, whenever sex is involved, some people have emotional
responses which are based in their own experience rather that of the putative
victim. There are religious organizations and moral crusaders involved in
anti-trafficking who are not shy about their wish to impose a certain type of
morality and social control, especially on women.

In addition, keep in mind that to many people, arresting and
imprisoning US sex workers is not only a moral issue but part of a
multimillion-dollar industry. Whenever there is money moving around, in the
form of government grants and private donations to anti-sex work NGOs, and
lucrative contracts and tax benefits to the private-prison industry,
motivations can drift pretty far from the strictly altruistic. Laws against
prostitution are selectively enforced, generally based on race and class, and
overwhelmingly by gender. So the people at the bottom of the social-power
pyramid are those most likely to be hurt by the laws against it.

That's why when you read scary headlines about “X Bazillion
People Are Being Sex Trafficked", it does not necessarily mean the person
is underage, or has been taken from one place to another, or is an undocumented
immigrant, or is being forced or coerced into doing sex work against his/her
wishes. It also doesn't mean that anyone can actually see/find those supposed
victims, since they are often pure invention, as we will see.

People can be abused in systems of sex work - just as they
can be abused in non-sex work forms of labor, and in all other social systems.
But criminalization and stigmatization of all sex work is not the right answer.
People are abused in the social institution of marriage, too. But we do not
outlaw marriage and arrest anyone who says, "I do." People are raped,
but we do not respond to that fact by outlawing all consensual sex. On a moral
level, we do not want anyone to be harmed. But when it comes to allocating
public resources to combat that, the current system does not work. It is not
useful to treat a very wide spectrum of people around the world as if they were
all the same one-dimensional “victim”, and neither is it wise to try to condense
this multifaceted issue into a few bits of bumper-sticker wisdom.

My goal here is to create sharper understanding of how the
situation is not as black-and-white as people are often told, and that some of
the systems that are ostensibly used to "help" people are not what
those people themselves want, and may actually cause even more harm. It's crucial to have a true understanding of
the reality of the situation, so we can devise systems that offer anyone being
victimized real assistance while also treating them with dignity and being
respectful of their agency and their wishes. To that end, this is the reading
that I recommend to get a fuller understanding of the challenges of helping
those who need help, without criminalizing, stigmatizing and generally imposing
a very binary victim/criminal worldview onto a large and diverse set of people.

First, understand terms:
A very quick overview of different views of how sex work should be
treated - prohibition, decriminalization, legalization, etc. I am an advocate
for decriminalization. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prostitution#Laws

Then, start reading here: Journalist Melissa Gira Grant’s
article “The War On Sex Workers”*. Grant has written a lot on this topic, but
this is a good snapshot of the problem. "Although nearly all
prostitution-related law in the United States is made at the state or municipal
level, redefining prostitution as trafficking provides a rationale for federal
action against the sex trade... It is about an unholy marriage of feminism with
the conservatism and police power that many feminists claim to stand
against." http://reason.com/archives/2013/01/21/the-war-on-sex-workers

The story of a landmark study by John Jay College of
Criminal Justice that "demolished virtually every stereotype surrounding
the underage sex trade". For example: the majority of underage people
doing sex work are actually young men of color.
The FBI reports
that $80 million is spent annually for law enforcement and social services to
rescue approximately 200 child prostitutes per year. That's a
$400,000-per-rescued-child average. Also, only 10% of underage sex workers
report having pimps. http://www.seattleweekly.com/2011-11-02/news/lost-boys-demolishing-the-underage-prostitute-stereotype/

The throngs of sex-trafficking
victims (of any age) simply cannot be found

Washington Post, 2007: “The fact that the alleged hundreds
of thousands of sex trafficking victims simply cannot be found has been noted.
"President Bush has blanketed the nation with 42 Justice Department task
forces and spent more than $150 million -- all to find and help the estimated
hundreds of thousands of victims of forced prostitution or labor in the United
States. But the government couldn't find them." http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/09/22/AR2007092201401.html

Tennesse: Chattanooga police recently found exactly one
trafficking victim, although a study in 2011 claimed the area had "more
than a hundred". Quotes from an editorial: "Chattanooga Police Chief
Bobby Dodd said the sex trafficking incident...was "the only one I know
of." And also, "The study is, apparently, based on erroneous surveys
and severely lacking in verifiable facts... Unfortunately, local organizations
appear unprepared to help what few sex trafficking cases there may be in the
Chattanooga area." http://www.timesfreepress.com/news/2013/jan/26/sex-trafficking-study-apparently-free-press/

“Pimps and clients
are arrested” No. Usually it is the seller, not the buyer who is arrested. Arresting
people for sexwork takes resources away from the truly needy, and harms women.

Colorado: A study of arrests in Denver reveals that
prostitution busts affect women more than men: adult males made up 39 percent
of arrests, while adult females made up 61 percent,and women are more likely to
get jail time: 70 percent of women, as opposed to just 36 percent of men.
http://blogs.westword.com/latestword/2012/05/prostitution_denver_study_women_johns.php

The Global Alliance Against Trafficking of Women (GAATW)
released a 75-page paper disproving the myth that major sporting events attract
large numbers of sex workers, let alone human traffickers. “There is no
evidence that large sporting events cause an increase in trafficking for
prostitution.” (PDF) http://www.gaatw.org/publications/WhatstheCostofaRumour.11.15.2011.pdf

New 2014Superbowl Sex Trafficking Stories: A reminder: there
are no definitive “sex trafficking” statistics for the United States. They are
not collected by any central agency. So any article you read that says “X City
is the Number One hub for sex trafficking!” is completely and 100% WRONG. There
simply is no data to back that up. Zip. Zilch. Nada. Bogus. They are making
that up.

But! There is one question about sex trafficking in the US
that HAS been exhaustively documented: sex trafficking around The Super Bowl.
And the consensus continues to be: it doesn’t exist.

Analysis from Justin Ling here: "Not Quite The Nordic
Model: The federal government has tabled its new prostitution bill. But does it
put the lives of sex workers at risk?"http://nationalmagazine.ca/Articles/June-2014/Not-quite-the-Nordic-model.aspx

Background stories:

UK, The Guardian, 2008: Britain's "Poppy Project"
which received 5.8million pounds in funding, was widely denounced by 27 key
figures in sex work research from prestigious universities across the UK and
overseas. They stated that the report was conducted with neither ethical
approval nor acknowledgement of evidence and co-authored by a journalist known
for producing anti-prostitution findings. “You can't just churn out political
propaganda and say it's research. You end up with very dangerous policy.” http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2008/oct/03/research.women

US policies conflate trafficking and prostitution in Thailand:
The Nation, Noy Thrupkaew “I remember talking to US officials who were confused
that there could be voluntary prostitution," he says. "They thought,
'Why would we need to differentiate? It's all forced and largely the same as
trafficking. If we come across it, we should shut it down.' If you think that
sex work is one of the worst things that can happen to a person, then I guess
you can say you are rescuing people to take them out of it." http://www.thenation.com/article/crusade-against-sex-trafficking?page=0,1

Sex Work And The Law In Latin America: “Sex trafficking is
criminalized, but often mistakenly blurred with sex work. Confusing sex
workers, who have chosen to engage in this area of work, with trafficked persons
who have suffered some form of coercion, silences the legitimate voices of sex
workers and actually blocks discussions on how to end human trafficking…. As
sex work becomes more secretive, so the vulnerability of the human rights of
sex workers increases.” http://www.aidsalliance.org/NewsDetails.aspx?Id=291530

Sex work in Australia: (Note: prostitution is legal soma
parts of Australia, although regulations vary from state to state.) Researchers
tell federal parliament that illegal brothel raids a waste of time: "Instead
of an evidence-based approach addressing real vulnerabilities, Australia's
approach continues to try to detect the mythical trafficking victim and
trafficker that is a media-driven stereotype." http://news.ninemsn.com.au/national/2013/04/23/13/16/brothel-raids-a-waste-of-time-sex-workers

More From Down Under: Decriminalizing sex work does not
increase problems. In Australia and New Zealand, laws regarding sex work have
been undergoing reform aimed at decriminalization since the early 1990s. A 2012
report to Australian Ministry Of Health finds decriminalizing sex work has NOT
increased trafficking, or voluntary sex work, or STIs. The whole thing is
fascinating, but there’s a summary of the findings on page 6 and its
recommendations on page 7. (PDF) http://maggiemcneill.files.wordpress.com/2012/04/nsw-sex-industry-report-2012.pdf

UK Dr. Brooke Magnati has a lot of good things to say on the
subject:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/women/sex/9907625/Demonising-sex-workers-makes-their-lives-more-dangerous.html
She also tells a story of women being incarcerated in Ireland for (among other
things) being promiscuous/sex workers, well into the 1970’s. This is just one
example of why many sex workers are extremely leery of “help” from
government/charity orgs. http://sexonomics-uk.blogspot.com/2013/01/when-help-is-anything-but.html

Video: Here's a good video, with citations, explaining
exactly how the US uses a gag order, The Anti-Prostitution Oath, to impose a
fundamentalist morality on public health efforts and constrain harm reduction
strategies around the world. http://vimeo.com/43262622

Video: The Thai sex workers rights group, Empower
Foundation, has made a ten minute video called "Last Raid In Siam"
that shows how they feel about organizations that raid and "rescue"
them. (Youtube, has sound, worksafe) "Last Raid In Siam" is funny,
but the real-life story often isn't. Two women died while recently trying to
escape from an anti-prostitution center where they were being held against
their will. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=70rPAxLFFKU

The Big Picture: If
there is such a place as one-stop reading for Everything You Need To Know about
sex work and the myth of sex trafficking… Well, there, isn’t really. But I
can narrow it down.

Sex Work group blog Tits And Sass always has great opinions what
is happening for sex workers in the US and abroad. http://titsandsass.com/

And for extra-credit Deep Reading: “Sex Work Imperialism” by
Scott Long “The aim is to roll back more than a decade of progress at the UN,
and around the world, in safeguarding sex workers’ health and safety.” http://paper-bird.net/2013/09/24/sex-imperialism/